^^^ Needs is a strong word. As much as some of us want it to happen it doesn't need to happen as far as money is concerned because once again let's face it the wants of the comic book fans are but a measly speck of the audience that would go see these films.

I do admit it could be a good idea to get the more "hardcore" heroes out under the Marvel Knights banner. However, I don't think they should get a whole Phase directed to them, they wouldn't rake in the money to warrant it.

With the 'MCU proper' heading in a more cosmic, world/universe endangering direction, there's a whole slew of MONETIZABLE street-level characters and stories that have been been given the slightly shorter end of the stick.

My proposal was never to dedicate an entire Phase to them. More like a separate division of Marvel to make, say, one hypothetical Marvel Knights movie a year on, say, a $75-100 million budget. I'm sure Feige could deputize someone to oversee these movies just how he himself has sheparded the Marvel movies thus far.

The mandate would essentially be:
1. In continuity with the MCU, proper.
2. No real narrative threads crossing over that would unnecessarily muddy the continuity.

^^^ Feige has stated there's two reasons why they can't do 3 movies a year even if they want to... 1. Money and 2. Risk of over-saturating the market. While your proposal could remedy 1, if WB starts putting out DC films every year starting 2016 like it's rumored to be doing then 2 becomes a bigger problem.

^^^ Feige has stated there's two reasons why they can't do 3 movies a year even if they want to... 1. Money and 2. Risk of over-saturating the market. While your proposal could remedy 1, if WB starts putting out DC films every year starting 2016 like it's rumored to be doing then 2 becomes a bigger problem.

Yes, those are the primary 2 points I kept in mind while thinking about how Marvel ought to go about this. While those are still problems to overcome, handing off the annual 'Marvel Knights' films to a different, isolated, but yet collaborative division of Marvel would melp mitigate both.

To address #1, the budget of these movies would be modest compared to tentpoles like the Iron Man, Thor and even Avengers films. I believe a $150-200 million worldwide gross would be the minimum amount required in order to justify a film made off of a $75-100 mill budget. I cannot imagine a 'Marvel' branded movie making less unless it is an absolute turd. I trust Fiege to put the right people in place, so much so that I cannot conceive of this scenario.

To address #2, tonally, these movies will be gritty and thus somewhat disassociated from the fun, bright mainstream MCU movies.

Note: I don't necessarily mean R-rated when I say gritty. Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that nudity and/or viscera are essential to depicting Punisher (for example) on film.

Yes, those are the primary 2 points I kept in mind while thinking about how Marvel ought to go about this. While those are still problems to overcome, handing off the annual 'Marvel Knights' films to a different, isolated, but yet collaborative division of Marvel would melp mitigate both.

To address #1, the budget of these movies would be modest compared to tentpoles like the Iron Man, Thor and even Avengers films. I believe a $150-200 million worldwide gross would be the minimum amount required in order to justify a film made off of a $75-100 mill budget. I cannot imagine a 'Marvel' branded movie making less unless it is an absolute turd. I trust Fiege to put the right people in place, so much so that I cannot conceive of this scenario.

To address #2, tonally, these movies will be gritty and thus somewhat disassociated from the fun, bright mainstream MCU movies.

Note: I don't necessarily mean R-rated when I say gritty. Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that nudity and/or viscera are essential to depicting Punisher (for example) on film.

Like I said #1 is doable.
#2 however is more difficult because even if the films are different than the rest of the MCU movies they're still comic book movies and therefore still fall into the same category. TDK and Avengers are two totally different films but they still are superhero films. This is the over-saturation Fiege is talking about.

Like I said #1 is doable.
#2 however is more difficult because even if the films are different than the rest of the MCU movies they're still comic book movies and therefore still fall into the same category. TDK and Avengers are two totally different films but they still are superhero films. This is the over-saturation Fiege is talking about.

Honestly, I'm skeptical if over-saturation is really an issue. To date, people have gone to see good(successful) movies, and skipped bad(unsuccessful) ones; the effect of competition is the direct effect of having movies in theaters at the same time. IMO, saturation would only be an issue if they start making too many movies to properly space them out. Except lower budget "gritty" films would likely make for good non-peak releases, making it somewhat moot.

Yes, those are the primary 2 points I kept in mind while thinking about how Marvel ought to go about this. While those are still problems to overcome, handing off the annual 'Marvel Knights' films to a different, isolated, but yet collaborative division of Marvel would melp mitigate both.

To address #1, the budget of these movies would be modest compared to tentpoles like the Iron Man, Thor and even Avengers films. I believe a $150-200 million worldwide gross would be the minimum amount required in order to justify a film made off of a $75-100 mill budget. I cannot imagine a 'Marvel' branded movie making less unless it is an absolute turd. I trust Fiege to put the right people in place, so much so that I cannot conceive of this scenario.

To address #2, tonally, these movies will be gritty and thus somewhat disassociated from the fun, bright mainstream MCU movies.

Note: I don't necessarily mean R-rated when I say gritty. Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that nudity and/or viscera are essential to depicting Punisher (for example) on film.

Are you including marketing in your budget? I would say a $100M film has another $30-$40M in marketing attached to it, so a $200M BO wouldn't justify it. The MCU is more about spectacle. I say if you want to do street level heroes, then do a HBO tv series where you could actually do development over time and the budget would be sizeable or a tv show.

Honestly, I'm skeptical if over-saturation is really an issue. To date, people have gone to see good(successful) movies, and skipped bad(unsuccessful) ones; the effect of competition is the direct effect of having movies in theaters at the same time. IMO, saturation would only be an issue if they start making too many movies to properly space them out. Except lower budget "gritty" films would likely make for good non-peak releases, making it somewhat moot.

So you're saying oversaturation would be an issue when the market becomes oversaturated. Got it

So you're saying oversaturation would be an issue when the market becomes oversaturated. Got it

Ha ha.

There's two different usages of the term "over-saturation," here. One is the idea of "superhero fatigue", that people will get "tired" of superhero movies if there are too many of them. I see no evidence that this is actually a meaningful problem. The other is that if you have too many superhero movies, you'll run out of release dates. This is true, but its also not a problem for Marvel Studios so much as for the entire movie industry. Superhero movies compete for good release dates with all other demographically-similar movies; a big budget sci-fi or action movie is just as much competition for release dates as another superhero movie would be.

There's two different usages of the term "over-saturation," here. One is the idea of "superhero fatigue", that people will get "tired" of superhero movies if there are too many of them. I see no evidence that this is actually a meaningful problem. The other is that if you have too many superhero movies, you'll run out of release dates. This is true, but its also not a problem for Marvel Studios so much as for the entire movie industry. Superhero movies compete for good release dates with all other demographically-similar movies; a big budget sci-fi or action movie is just as much competition for release dates as another superhero movie would be.

No there was one usage. You decided to make it two different usages. And the problem is not that people are going to get tired of the genre (which is a concern actually), the problem is if or when people start trying to capitalize on the genre. When a new genre emerges people start trying to capitalize on it which in turn causes eventual over-saturation which causes only a few films in the genre to do well and everything else to do not so well. This is why Marvel doesn't want to make 3 films every single year. They know there's a good chance with too many superhero films many will not do so well. Marvel knows they won't be the only big name in town in the next couple years.

No there was one usage. You decided to make it two different usages. And the problem is not that people are going to get tired of the genre (which is a concern actually), the problem is if or when people start trying to capitalize on the genre. When a new genre emerges people start trying to capitalize on it which in turn causes eventual over-saturation which causes only a few films in the genre to do well and everything else to do not so well. This is why Marvel doesn't want to make 3 films every single year. They know there's a good chance with too many superhero films many will not do so well. Marvel knows they won't be the only big name in town in the next couple years.

That's only a problem for Marvel insofar as anybody actually *can* compete with them. So far, the only people with a demonstrated ability to do so are Christopher Nolan and the Sony Spider-man movies. That's way far away from actually achieving saturation based on super hero films alone. Other people releasing crappy super hero films just results in Marvel steamrolling them.

Newsarama has a thing up now for their casting ideas for Daredevil. They have Joseph Gordon Levitt as Daredevil. I could by that. He's a very good actor, familiar with action, and isn't afraid to get involved in a comic book franchise. I would much rather have him in Daredevil than taking over as Batman.